I often get small dividends of less than £2 and it seems silly to be investing amounts that small with autoinvest.
I feel like it would be a good idea to be able to set a minimum autoinvest level.
1 Like
Morning 
The minimum autoinvest level is set at £1 for dividends, afaik.
You could turn off Autoinvest completely for your portfolio(s) and only invest manually once it suits you.
But… as there is no commission charged for investment - why bother? Unless you’re watching ex-dividend dates and want to swap in/out of ETF’s just in time? I just let it “do its thing” by itself and keep Autoinvest turned on for the portfolios which it needs to be on.
1 Like
Oh, interesting, I wasn’t aware of the ‘no commission’ thing, you are right then no point stopping it. I have turned it off and on a few times, but obviously it got a bit tedious, hence the suggestion… But yes, happy to just leave it as is…
1 Like
Hmm, they say there is “no commission” but they have to make their money somewhere.
Every investment platform has a “spread”, which is the difference between the buy and sell rates. You might have noticed it at a bureau de change. So every time you make a transaction they essentially make money.
So you are better off making fewer transactions when the market is right than lots of smaller ones.
So yes, I do think this minimum investment level is a good idea.
They don’t make money from the spread, the market makers do. Also, the spread is a percentage, so you lose the same amount in absolute terms whether making one large purchase or lots of tiny purchases adding up to the same amount. It’s a common misconception.
Who says they use the same price that they get it for and don’t adjust it for the size? It’s a business, you don’t get anything for free.
Hi @racitup - @stevemb is right, we don’t benefit from the spread. Of course we do have to make money - and we’re pretty transparent about how we do it. You can read more about this on our blog.
Tl;dr - we make money from our managed portfolios, which carry a charge of 0.25% per year. To keep costs low, we trade once a day, leverage automation, and use resources efficiently so we can maintain competitive pricing without compromising on services.
We also earn interest from uninvested cash on the platform. Importantly, this excludes any cash held in managed portfolios.
Regarding profitability, our business model has been designed with long-term growth in mind.
While we anticipate making a loss in our early years, this is part of our strategy to invest in technology, expand our client base, and build a platform that delivers exceptional value. We are confident that this approach will yield sustainable profitability as we grow.
Hope this helps!